Green with Envy

by N. L. Cameron

  Levi stood behind the inn. He hammered against the building, but I couldn’t see what he was doing from where I stood. So much the better. I could slip out without him seeing me, and whatever he was doing would keep him occupied while I went a-snooping.

  I tiptoed back down the hall to the front door, eased it back, and dashed for the cover of the woods. A fine pass this situation had come to, when the owner of the Barrell Inn had to run around and hide from her own employees just to walk on her own property!

  Once inside the trees, I stopped to catch my breath. I couldn’t let my emotions run away with me. I had to stop and think. I set my bearings for Glenda’s greenhouse, but when I started forward in that direction, the snap of dry twigs attracted my attention. I peeked through the trees to find the source of the sound.

  Hector Englefink exited the inn and marched into the forest not ten paces away from me. I cowered behind the foliage so he wouldn’t see me. My pulse thumped in my brain. Where was he going? Was he on his way to carry out his nefarious operation? Now was my chance to find out.

  He strode into the woods without looking back. He made enough noise to drown out any sound from me. I could trail him with no problem, but I hung back just in case. I kept his bobbing shoulders just barely in sight, and he led the way deep into the heart of the mountains.

  Chapter 14

  Hector wound his way between the dense bushes. He crashed straight through the thickest stands of blackberry and creepers. He didn’t follow any path, and he made no effort to hide his movements.

  My mind raced. What was he up to? Why would he venture into the forest without his friend? Did he dump Roger? Did they finally part ways? Maybe Levi said something to interfere with their working relationship.

  More misgivings about Levi crowded into my head, but I had no time to consider them now. Hector hiked farther into the mountains. The steeper the terrain, the faster he walked. Pretty soon, the climb demanded all my strength.

  I would have given anything to stop and catch my breath, but I couldn’t let him out of my sight. If I lost him in these woods, not only would I never find him again, I would probably never find my way out, either.

  I cast a glance over my shoulder. I hurried after Hector so fast I had no idea where I was or how to get back to the inn. Where would this crazy episode lead? What would become of me? What was the point of finding the hidden clue to Beatrice’s murder if I wound up lost or dead in these mountains?

  I entertained so many wild fantasies about all the terrible things that could happen to me, I started feeling very sorry for myself. My phantasms would have slowed me down and crushed me to the Earth if I hadn’t been so desperate to keep up with Hector.

  Underneath it all, burning curiosity drove me forward. I had to find out what he was doing. I couldn’t rest until I discovered some answers.

  He climbed for over an hour before I heard a blow echo between the trees. When I looked again, my heart nearly stopped. I couldn’t see Hector’s shoulders anymore. He no longer bashed his way through the woods. Where did he go? He couldn’t just vanish into thin air.

  I couldn’t go back the way I came. I had no choice but to creep forward and strain to look through the leaves and branches, and my eyes bugged out of my head.

  Hector and Nathaniel stood in front of the biggest greenhouse I ever saw, but towering trees shielded it from the sky. The waving canopy let light strike its roof, but enough greenery swayed up there to hide the greenhouse from the air.

  “One hundred, and that’s my last offer,” Nathaniel told Hector.

  “That’s not what we agreed,” Hector returned. “You’ll take eighty or lose the whole deal.”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “I won’t go below one hundred. I have a margin to consider, you know.”

  “I don’t care about your margin any more than you care about mine,” Hector shot back. “If we can’t come to an agreement, we both lose.”

  Nathaniel held up both hands. “Sorry. I can’t accept that.”

  “I’ll be staying at the inn a few more days,” Hector told him, “but if we don’t come to an understanding, we’ll walk away.”

  “Walk away, then,” Nathaniel replied. “I can find plenty of other buyers who will pay one hundred. Don’t think you’re the only game in town.”

  “And I can find plenty of suppliers who will sell for eighty. I’m going back to the inn now. Think about what I said. It would be a shame to throw this relationship away over twenty dollars.”

  “I don’t have to think about it,” Nathaniel told him. “Twenty dollars might not sound like much, but you multiply that by a million, and it turns into a lot. Don’t come back up here until you’re willing to pay a hundred. I won’t negotiate any further than that.”

  He and Hector walked away from each other at the same moment. I cringed behind a blackberry bush while Hector stormed down the mountain within inches of my nose. He clomped away in the direction he came and left me there, miles from home and just as lost as before.

  Nathaniel went into the greenhouse. The door banged shut, and he stayed in there more than two hours. I started to despair when I remembered my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket, turned off the sound, and pulled up Google Maps. I found my position by satellite and recorded the spot. That made me feel better. At least I had a way to get out of here.

  Just then, Nathaniel barged out of the greenhouse. He let the door slam shut behind him, and he trooped away down the mountain, too. He followed the same line Hector took. He must be headed back to the inn.

  In a second, I found myself alone in the trackless mountains. Silence descended over everything. Not even birds sang to keep me company. How long should I hide in the bushes before I came out and took a look around?

  I didn’t hide another hour, but it sure felt like it. My knees started to ache. At last, I heaved myself to my feet and pushed through the undergrowth. I paused by the door to listen. Not a sound disturbed the place.

  I checked my phone again. This greenhouse was definitely on inn property. That made it mine, right? I put out my hand to the door and hesitated again. No one could accuse me of trespassing on my own property. I had every right to go in there and see what Nathaniel was up to when he was supposed to be pruning my rose bushes.

  I pulled the door open and ducked inside. The smell hit me in the face like a Mack truck. No one who has smelled that smell can ever mistake it for anything else. It made my head buzz the instant it blasted into my nostrils, but I fought my way out of my delirium to take a good look around.

  One whole side of the enormous structure vibrated bright green with plants higher than my head. Their jagged leaves and rotund bud colas bristled with crystals. I didn’t have to be any plant expert to recognize them. They were marijuana plants—the biggest, fattest, healthiest marijuana plants I’d ever laid eyes on.

  So, that’s what he was negotiating with Hector about. Hector and Roger must have come up here to do a deal with Nathaniel. They couldn’t agree on the price. Maybe that’s what Hector and Roger argued about, too.

  No doubt Levi knew all about this. He must see and hear all kinds of things around the inn. No wonder he thought I was a patsy. I didn’t know what was going on right under my nose.

  I walked down the long aisle, but the marijuana plants were the same all the way to the far wall. Nathaniel must have a couple thousand plants growing in here, and all of them just days away from harvest. He must stand to make a fortune selling these, and how long he’d been doing it before Beatrice died was anybody’s guess.

  I turned around to walk back when my eye fell on the other side of the greenhouse. No marijuana plants there. I slowed down to take a closer look. Low-growing bushes dangling with black berries crowded one whole corner. Any kid learning to identify plants knew that one. It was deadly nightshade. A little farther on, and I recognized a tall plant anyone might mistake for parsley. It wasn’t parsley, though. It was hemlock.

  I began to see a pattern. Another bunch o
f plants towered high with the bright pastel spikes of foxgloves in a large block in the center of the greenhouse. Their dainty flowers waved in the draft of air coming through the vents over the door. Foxglove—digitalis. Every plant in the place—with the exception of the marijuana—was deadly poisonous.

  What was Nathaniel doing, growing these plants on the inn property? I only had to cast my eye behind me to find the answer. With a marijuana crop like this on his hands, Nathaniel had to protect his investment. What better way to do that than with some of the world’s most deadly poisons? He was a gardener. He used the tools of his trade to accomplish his ends.

  My mind spun back through everything I’d seen, heard, and discovered over the last few days. Someone or something caused Beatrice’s heart to rupture while she was drinking a cup of tea. If she was murdered, someone could have put a poison in her tea cup, and here I was, staring the motive and the method straight in the face.

  A terrible cold certainty trickled all over my skin. Nathaniel killed my aunt. She must have found out about his marijuana growing operation. She must have threatened it somehow, and he killed her to keep her quiet. No wonder she thought she was in danger, but she never mentioned exactly who she thought was after her. She must have found this greenhouse, but not known to whom it belonged.

  I walked all the way back to the far end of the greenhouse. I turned on my phone and walked back to the entrance with the video camera running. I took video of the whole place and even zeroed in on the detail of the ripe colas, the nightshade berries, and the foxglove flowers. No one could deny what Nathaniel was doing in that greenhouse.

  The real question was, who could I show this to? If Nathaniel was the killer, then the others were innocent. My mind flew to Levi. I’d thought such terrible, unfair things about him. I understood now why he wanted to warn me against investigating Beatrice’s death. He must have known all about Nathaniel’s operation.

  I made up my mind before I got to the door. If I could trust one person on this crazy mountain, it was Levi Stokes. I turned off my phone and stuck it in my pocket. I pulled the door open and ran straight into Nathaniel.

  The first hint of a question flashed across his face. Then he set his lips in a hard straight line. “I should have known you would wind up here sooner or later.”

  I gasped for breath. “Nathaniel! I was just….”

  I stopped. What was the point of making some lame excuse? He knew what I was doing there. He’d killed Beatrice for finding this place, and she didn’t know it was his. He could see the truth written plain as day all over my face. I knew. I knew what he was doing, and I knew it was him doing it. I couldn’t hide it.

  He only nodded. “I thought so. Well, there’s only one thing to do about it.”

  I gulped hard. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to take you somewhere you won’t do any harm to me or my work.”

  When I tried to speak, a pathetic little squeak came out. “Where’s that?”

  He didn’t answer. Lightning fast, he rushed at me. He hit me in the chest with his bony shoulders. The blow forced the air out of my lungs, and I folded forward across the middle. He grabbed my legs and hoisted me off the ground.

  The minute I left the safety of the Earth, I woke from my startled shock. I beat him across the back and screamed, “Hey! Put me down! You can’t do this!”

  I might as well have been yelling at a dead stump for all he listened to me. I pounded my fists into his back, but no matter how I flailed and tossed, he wouldn’t put me down. He carried me down the mountain like a sack of potatoes, and in a few minutes, the woods swallowed us up.

  Chapter 15

  Nathaniel could move pretty fast when he wanted to. He might not have a scrap of flesh on his scrawny body to pad his shoulder against my ribs, but he knew how to use the stringy muscle he had.

  He pumped his way down the mountain. At first, I thanked heaven he was taking me back in the direction of the inn and town, but he turned off before he got halfway down the hill. He plunged off somewhere I’d never been before.

  The trees grew thicker and blocked out the daylight from above. The forest fell into shadow. Fear and anxiety shoved aside my righteous indignation. What would Nathaniel do to me? Would he make me drink another toxic brew and leave me to die out here?

  What could I do? I had to think, to come up with a way to fight him, but no matter how I kicked and thrashed, he kept his hold on me. I couldn’t get off his shoulder no matter what I tried.

  At least I still had my phone. I could use Google Maps to find my way out of here, too. Just as soon as he did something with me and put me down, he would leave me alone somewhere. Then I could get it out and take a look.

  I couldn’t see where he took me. I didn’t want to see in that horrible forest. I wanted to be back in my own quarters, sitting in front of the window and gazing out at Lake Ashfield so bright and clear and beautiful in the distance. Nothing could go wrong as long as I kept that majestic blue in front of my eyes.

  I didn’t want to know where he was taking me. I only wanted to get down, to be left alone so I could deal with this situation on my own. I never wanted to see Nathaniel Rowe again.

  All too soon, he carried me into some place even darker and creepier than the forest he just walked through. The sky disappeared. All the trees and leaves and bushes vanished until only blackness surrounded me on all sides.

  My heart quailed, but there was nothing I could do. I had to bide my time until some opportunity presented itself. I stopped kicking and hitting. I worked my eyes to catch any sign of the surroundings, but not one beam of light interrupted the darkness.

  Farther and farther Nathaniel went. Only once, my curiosity and apprehension overcame me. I asked, “Where are you taking me?” but I never expected any answer and I didn’t get one.

  All at once, he stopped. He dumped me on the ground somewhere in the darkness. I scrambled sideways and groped for any sign of hope, but I smashed my head into a solid rock wall instead.

  I saw stars and sat down heavily to await my fate. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face in this dark. I definitely couldn’t find my way out without a light.

  The moment that thought crossed my mind, a match flared in the gloom. It illuminated Nathaniel’s face, now contorted beyond recognition by hate and malicious animal madness. I caught my breath. “Nathaniel! What are you doing?”

  He touched the match to the wick inside an old-fashioned glass lantern. He held the glowing orb near his own face. The dancing shadows played over his angular cheekbones. They cast his eye sockets in dark circles and turned him into a ghoul from hell.

  Why didn’t I see this in him before? Why did I see the clean-cut gardener but not the murderous fiend? His lips quivered back from his lips to reveal his pointed teeth. “You didn’t know, did you?”

  I could barely form the words. “Know what?”

  He waved his free hand to extinguish the match. “These tunnels extend for miles underneath the town. One of the entrances comes up not far from the inn, but they run all over these mountains. Some people think they’re just a myth because no one has ever found them, but I found them. You don’t spend as much time as I have in these mountains without discovering a few things. I know all about these tunnels. Now you know about them, too, but you’ll never tell anybody else. You’ll never see the light of day again.”

  I swallowed hard. “What are you going to do?”

  “Me?” He chuckled the most disgusting chuckle I ever heard. It gurgled out of his chest and echoed down the hollow tunnel. “I’m not going to do anything, and neither are you. You’re going to stay here, and I’m going back to my work at the inn. You’ll never find your way out of here, and no one will ever know what happened to you. You’ll stay down here until you starve to death, and that’s the best thing you can hope for.”

  My fighting spirit revived. “You can’t do this to me. You killed my aunt. You can’t kill me, too.”

 
; He smacked his lips. “I got away with killing that old windbag, and no one will ever find you down here. Your bones will lie in these tunnels, just like all the old forgotten miners who died down here. They’ll keep you company.” He chortled with demonic laughter.

  I struggled to my feet. “How did you do it? Did you poison Beatrice with digitalis? Did you dose her tea cup? Is that how you did it?”

  The smile evaporated off his face. “If you know that much, I shouldn’t have to give you all the sordid details.”

  “I really want to know. Was it the foxglove, or something else?”

  He cocked his head to one side. “You want to know? It was a bunch of sweet, innocent little daffodils.”

  I frowned. “Daffodils?”

  “Yes, daffodils. I brought your dear aunt a bunch in a vase in the parlor so she could admire them while she drank her tea. No one would ever think they could be so deadly. Most people don’t know they can cause heart arrhythmias in high enough doses. Your stupid aunt didn’t even see me put the paste into her cup, and the tea masked the taste. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  He broke into hysterical laughter. I couldn’t take my eyes off his horrible face. Who could plan and execute such a heartless murder on a helpless old lady? “Nathaniel! How could you?”

  “How could I?” he sneered. “You want to know how could I? I’ll tell you. I make millions of dollars every year on my greenhouse, and she was going to ruin all of that. You think I would walk away from that, just because she didn’t want pot growing on her property? No way! I tried to reason with her. I even tried to offer her a share of the profits, but oh, no!”

  My horror and fright started to fade. Cold steel fury took over. “You can’t exactly blame her for that. I’m sure you didn’t get her permission before you started growing it on her property.”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. “And then there’s the profit we stood to lose if she took the greenhouse back from my aunt. Can you believe she would throw away all that on a simple misunderstanding—and over a man! Whoever heard of anything so foolish!”